Getting Started

Get Draft running on your Mac in just a few minutes. This guide covers downloading, installing, and transforming your first piece of text.

System Requirements

Draft requires an Apple Silicon Mac (M1/M2/M3/M4) running macOS 14 Sonoma or later, with at least 8 GB of RAM. The AI models require approximately 2 GB of disk space.

Download & Install

Download Draft

Download the latest version of Draft from our website. The download is a standard macOS .dmg file.

Download Draft

Install the app

Open the .dmg file and drag Draft to your Applications folder.

Double-click to launch. macOS may ask you to confirm since the app was downloaded from the internet.

Download AI models

On first launch, Draft will download the AI models needed for text transformation. This is a one-time download of approximately 1.2 GB.

The download happens in the background. You can start using Draft once it completes.

Activate your license

Go to Settings → License and enter the email address you used when purchasing Draft. Your license will be activated automatically.

No license key needed — just your purchase email. Draft will validate and activate within seconds.

Offline after setup

Once the models are downloaded, Draft works completely offline. No internet connection is required for text transformation.

Your First Transformation

Copy some text

Select any text in any app and copy it to your clipboard with ⌘+C.

This could be an email you're drafting, a message in Slack, notes from a meeting, or any rough text you want to polish.

Open Draft

Press your Draft shortcut (default: ⌃+⌥+⌘+D). The Draft workbench will appear with your copied text already loaded.

You can also click the Draft icon in your menu bar.

Pick an action

Choose a preset action like Make this better, Shorten, or Summarize. Or type your own custom instruction in the refine field.

Draft will process your text locally and show the result.

Copy the result

Click Copy to copy the polished text to your clipboard. Paste it back into your original app with ⌘+V.

Always review

Draft suggests edits to save you time, but you should always review the output before using it. Your judgment remains yours.

Preset Actions

Draft includes 10+ preset actions for common text transformations:

Make this better

Improve quality, clarity, and flow

Make more direct

Remove hedging and filler words

Simplify language

Use plain, accessible words

Shorten

Cut length while keeping meaning

More formal

Professional business tone

Summarize

Condense to key points

Turn into bullets

Convert prose to bullet list

Extract actions

Pull out tasks and to-dos

Elaborate & expand

Add detail and depth

Improve this prompt

Make AI prompts clearer

Custom Instructions

Beyond preset actions, you can type any instruction in the refine field:

"more casual but still professional"
"rewrite for a technical audience"
"cut the fluff, keep the data"
"executive tone for a board email"

Draft adapts to exactly what you need.

Clipboard History

Draft keeps track of your recent clipboard items. You can copy text from multiple sources, then open Draft and select any of them for transformation.

Click the Recent section to see clipboard history and previous transformations.

Customizing Your Shortcut

The default shortcut is ⌃+⌥+⌘+D (Ctrl + Option + Cmd + D). You can change this in Draft's preferences:

Click the Draft icon in your menu bar
Select Settings
Click in the shortcut field and press your preferred key combination

Managing Your Subscription

If you have a monthly subscription, you can manage it directly from Draft:

Open Draft's Settings
Go to the License tab
Click Manage Subscription

This opens the Stripe Customer Portal where you can update payment methods, view invoices, or cancel your subscription.

Lifetime license?

If you purchased a lifetime license, there's nothing to manage — you have permanent access to Draft and all future updates.

Next Steps

Customization →

Configure output style and preferences

Troubleshooting →

Common issues and solutions